A borderless world: Crossplay brings gamers together

Many of the largest multiplayer video games are social experiences, inviting players to connect, compete, and show off their personalized game characters.¹ But crossplay – the ability to bring players together in the same game regardless of the device they use - is still uncommon. Those using a PC may not be able to play together with gamers on consoles or smartphones.

Deloitte’s 2022 Digital Media Trends survey found that US gamers are spread across multiple device platforms – smartphones, consoles, and PCs (see figure). This device balkanization can keep friends apart and frustrate players who want to move seamlessly across devices and experiences. Worse for the gaming businesses, it can fragment audiences, complicate analytics, and hinder content. By overcoming platform barriers, crossplay can solve these challenges and elevate social gaming experiences.

Content is king

Studios often develop games for multiple device platforms, requiring them to manage different code bases and environments to reach different audiences. Console makers, who feature games and run their own studios, have also used exclusive releases of highly anticipated AAA games to boost sales of their hardware. To play the game, you had to own their console.

With the rise of online multiplayer gaming, business models have been shifting. More titles are free-to-play, trading a one-time game purchase for regular sales of new game content and digital goods that personalize and outfit players. Social games can run for years as persistent services with periodic updates and events, enabling some to amass tens of millions of regular players. More are hosting celebrities, music events, and non-gaming brands and franchises. Game IP has grown in value, shifting emphasis further onto content and away from hardware. Growth in cloud gaming could accelerate this trend, enabling gameworlds to be truly universal.

Game studios and publishers should see crossplay as a way to bring players together, elevate gaming experiences, and monetize them more effectively. They should also consider that social games may be one step away from the metaverse. As more players buy digital goods to personalize their avatars, they may want the ability to carry them across device platforms and game experiences. Game providers could potentially enable portability and interoperability of those assets within their game portfolios.

To unleash the full potential of the emerging metaverse, more universal interoperability of avatars and digital goods may be essential.² This will likely require more cooperation among providers, signaled by recent efforts to build a coalition on metaverse interoperability.³ Web3-native blockchain disruptors are also establishing frameworks for portability and interoperability of identity, assets, and transactions, which could shape social gaming on its way to the metaverse.⁴

Recommendations for executives

• Develop a comprehensive view of the audience: Crossplay can help consolidate game audiences that might be fragmented across platforms. This can enable a more comprehensive understanding of players and greater coherency for advertising, promotions, and analytics. Ad campaigns, brand and franchise crossovers, and high-profile events can reach and monetize larger audiences.
• Connect players for greater engagement: Currently, leaving the game means leaving your network. Crossplay can further amplify gaming engagement by bringing more friends and collaborators together. It can also enable better matchmaking when users join multiplayer games, putting them into instances with more players at a similar level. Some leading social games report cross-players are much more engaged and spend more on digital goods.⁵
• Work toward seamless movement across the metaverse: Crossplay within a game is a step toward more seamless movement of players, avatars, and virtual goods across game experiences. This could support retention within a publisher’s portfolio and enable a broader marketplace of virtual goods. As more non-gaming experiences migrate into gameworlds, more universal portability could be needed. For example, players from any game should be able to easily attend a concert in a specific gameworld, bringing their personalized avatar with them. They should be able to buy digital merchandise during the event and take it with them when they leave. Such capabilities could unlock the metaverse but may require more collaboration across the industry, shared standards, and investment in blockchain technologies to enable the portability of identity, ownership, and goods.⁶